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ITS  WATERS,  LAND 
AND  LIFE  • 

BY  JOHN  E.BENNETT 


THE  MYSfa-POUWS CO..  PL/BUS^ ff^,  SF  CAL. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/alaskaitswaterslOObennrich 


Photo  by  Taber 


San  Francisco 


3  4''7 


Its  AaZ^kters,  Lknd  knd  Life 


An  Illustrated  Lecture 


-BY- 


JoHN  E.  Bennett 


San  Francisco 

THE  MYSELL-ROLLINS  COMPANY 

1898 

Copyrighted  by  the  Mysell-Rollins  Co. 


The  Alexandrian  Archipelago 


...AND  THE.... 


Alaskan  Peninsula. 


CANNOT  remember  the  name  of  that  special  agent,  who 
suggested  to  the  Forty-first  Congress  that  Alaska  be 
abandoned  by  the  United  States  upon  the  ground  that  it 
was  an  unprofitable  investment,  but  whoever  he  was  I  will 
hazard  the  opinion  that,  at  the  time  of  writing  his  report,  he 
had  never  made  a  tour  through  the  "  inner  passage.''  That  he 
had  never  steamed  among  the  islands  and  canals  which  fringe 
the  coast  from  Dixon's  Entrance,  two  hundred  miles  to  the 
St.  Elias  Range,  and  thence  with  a  stretch  of  sea  and  a 
northward  curve  on  to  Prince  William  Sound  and  the  Kenai 
Peninsula.  That  he  had  never  been  thrilled  by  the  experience  of  such  a  journey  I  will 
warrant,  for  if  he  had  known  such,  it  passes  reason  to  imagine  that  he  could  ever  have 
recommended  our  parting  with  what  he  could  not  but  have  recognized  will,  in  time, 
become  popularized  as  the  grandest  scenic  region  of  the  world. 

For  as  far  as  do  the  colors  and  fretwork  of  a  California  sunset  lie  beyond  the  powers 
of  detailed  reproduction  by  the  artist,  so  do  the  scenic  marvels  of  these  isles  and  channels 
surpass  the  limit  of  descriptive  narrative.  From  the  time  that  you  enter  Clarence  Strait 
until  you  move  through  Cross  Sound  again  into  the  North  Pacific,  you  are  encompassed 
by  a  swiftly  changing  panorama  of  surprises.  Your  first  sensations  will  be  that  you 
have  strangely  stepped  off  the  ocean  and  are  making  a  journey  through  inland  waters 
that  are  not  related  to  the  sea.  For  the  fresh  scent  in  the  cold,  damp  air  is  not  the  odor  of 
brine,  and  this  commingling  with  the  agreeable  exhalations  of  the  forests  which  clothe 
the  mountains  upon  your  either  hand,  makes  you  feel  that  you  are  winding  amongst  a 
a  mesh  of  rivers  in  some  semi-frigid  interior. 

As  you  move  along  the  intricate  ways,  some  of  them  scarcely  two  ships'  length  from 
bank  to  bank,  you  note  that  few  of  the  islands  have  beaches,  and  that  most  of  them  rise 
abruptly  out  of  the  water  and  carry  their  dark  green  foliage  boldly  up  to  the  line  of 
snow.  It  is  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  the  open  sea  to  the  farthest  reach  of  tide 
water,  but  from  many  positions,  as  you  pass  along,  you  may  have  in  plain  sight  the  high, 
snow-whitened  eminences  of  the  Coast  Range  of  mountains.  Indeed,  these  gloomy 
verdured  cones,  standing  here  and  there  about  you,  environing  you  with  their  stalwart 
forms,  seem  but  water-set  foothills  to  those  loftier,  steeper,  more  broken  elevations.  Very 
often  an  overhanging  fog  obscures  your  vision  to  all  but  your  close  surroundings,  and 
perhaps  an  almost  ever  present  rain  may  fill  the  air.  It  may  drizzle  freely,  or  it  may  pour 
in  such  copious  torrents  as  shall  remind  you  of  those  old  days  of  the  ark,  when  the 
windows  of  heaven  were  opened  ;  but  there  will  come  days  when  the  warm  sunshine  will 
bathe  the  scene  with  an  effulgence  of  gold  and  silver,  when  the  green  of  the  forests  will  be 
livened  with  a  lighter  hue,  when  the  cataractSi  plunging  in  broken  lines  of  foam  down  the 


ALASKA,    ITS   WATERS,   LAND,   AND   LIFE. 


sides  of  the  island  mountains  shall  mark  the  olive  with  a  purer  white,  when  the  whole  of 
nature  shall  seem  to  awaken  with  a  calm  spirit  and  reflect  a  smile  that  has  been  suppressed 
and  concealed. 

It  is  pleasant  at  such  a  time  to  steam  up  the  Gastineaux  Channel  and  pause  in  front  of 
the  wharf  at  Juneau.    This  is  a  town  of  peaked  and  lumber  houses  which  spreads  along  the 

shore  for  a  while, 
then  mounts  over 
the  back  of  a  little 
rise  and  lies  still 
at  the  foot  of  a 
great  green  moun- 
tain which  rears 
like  a  scowling 
giant  behind  it. 
It  is  a  mining 
town,  of  about 
2500  souls,  and 
bears  the  name  of 
a  French  half- 
breed  who  in  1880 
was  grub-staked 
at  Sitka  to  come 
here  and  prospect 
for  gold.  He  dis- 
covered a  placer 
district  close  to 
the  town-site  and 
took  from  its  ad- 
jacent veins  960  pounds  of  gold  ore,  worth  ^14,000.  He  found  also  the  great  mountain  of 
gold  quartz  on  Douglass  Island,  two  and  a  half  miles  across  the  channel,  This  he  sold  to 
John  Treadwell  for  $150.  The  operators  of  that  mine  now  clear  an  annual  dividend  of  over' 
half  a  million  dollars 

Joseph,  I  may  remark,  has  no  money  now,  and  when  I  was  last  in  Alaska  he  was 
preparing  for  a  foray  into  the  Yukon  country,  intent  upon  another  test  of  that  phenomenal 
luck  which  has  so  fav- 
ored him  in  the  past. 

Leaving  Juneau,  we 
round  Douglas  Island 
and  traversing  the  vari- 
ous channels  get  at  last 
into  Icy  Strait.  As  we 
move  thus  we  pass  bays 
which  bow  their  wide 
curves  inland,  and  the 
sun  shines  within  them 
white  against  their  in- 
numerable floes  of  ice. 
And  afar  over  to  the  yon 
side   of  such  a  bay  we 

observe  a  line  of  pearly,  Mountain  Range  of  Iron  on  Chilkat  River. 


Juneau. 


THB   ALEXANDRIAN   ARCHIPELAGO   AND   THE   ALASKAN    PENINSULA. 


'Side  View  of  the  Davidson  Glacier. 

glistening  cliffs  which  rise  two  hundred  feet  from  the  water's  edge;  and  if  we  near 
them  we  shall  discover  this  high,  broad  face  to  be  of  ice,  generally  opaque,  but  sometimes 
of  transparent,  irridescent  blue,  scintillating  with  the  sun,  and  fantastically  carved,  gouged 
into  innumerable  designs  of  protrusion  and  depression,  many  of  great  size,  some  highly 
architectural,  ornate.  These  are  the  results  of  the  meltings  and  uneven  fractures  of  a 
glacier  that  is  moving  at  a  rate  of  sixty  feet  per  day  towards  the  sea;  and  as  we  pause  we 
may  hear  the  crash  and  thunderings,  heavy,  like  some  long  drawn  cannonade,  of  the  ice 
boulders  breaking  away  from  the  glacier  and  falling  into  the  bay,  there  to  float  upon  the 
surface  and  become  bergs. 


Top  of  Muir  Glacier. 


8 


ALASKA,    ITS   WATERS,    LAND   AND   UFE. 


Source  of  the 
Yahtsee  River. 


As  we  steam  away  the  long  reach  of  the 

glacier  lying  in  its  mountain  ravine  becomes 

apparent.     Farther  than  the  eye  can   reach, 

for  twenty-five  miles  or  more,  it  extends  into 

the  range,  and  from  time  to  time  in  white  and 

giant  arms,  it  reaches  up  and  takes  the  ice 

from  connecting   canyons.     These  transverse 

ice  rivers  are  called  Alpine  glaciers,  and  the 

most  perfect  one  is  the  Davidson  Glacier,  at 

the  head  of  Chilkat  Inlet,  discovered  by  Prof. 

George  Davidson  in  1 868.    The  surface  of  all  of 

these  glaciers  presents  a  strangely  convoluted 

aspect,  due  to  the 

uneven  meltings 

of  the   ice,  and 

many   of  them 

are  crevassed 

with  widebreaks 

hundreds  of  feet 

indepth.  Butthe 

Alpine    glaciers 

do    not    always 

advance   upon 

the   sea.     Often 

they  merge  into 

a  great  ice  lake 

which   forms  at 

their    foot     and 

becomes  another 

glacier  called  a 

Piedmont  glacier.     The  largest  of  these  latter  is  the  Malaspina,  fronting  the  ocean  near  the 

St.  Elias  range  with  a  face  of  ice  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high  and  fifty  miles  in  length. 

The  Alpines  making   into   it   are    radiant  with  rainbow  hues    and  wonderful   in   their 

phenomenal  colorings.  One  long  ice  mound  will  be 
pink,  another  purple,  and  a  third  a  diamond  blue. 
Every  gulch  in  the  range  bears  one,  and  in  a  reach  of 
thirty  miles  of  mountains,  there  are  no  less  than 
sixty-one  of  these  strange  ice  bodies. 

But  the  most  remarkable  of  all  the  curious  features 
in  relation  to  this  glacier,  more  remarkable  it  has  seemed 
to  me  than  that  luxuriance  of  spikenards,  shrubs 
and  ferns  which  grows  upon  its  surface,  is  that  preat 
tunnel  at  the  base  of  the  glacier,  out  of  which  there 
rushes  the  Yahtsee  River.  It  is  the  accumulated 
meltings  and  seepage  of  the  vast  ice  field  that  finds  its 
exit  here,  and  it  has  borne  with  it  millions  of  tons  of 
detritus  from  the  upper  zone,  which  it  has  subsequently 
V.  _  TK^  "a^^Biesv^ '^y.  fBf      deposited  and  with  it  killed  and  nearly  buried  a  great 

forest  of  spruce  which  lay  before  it  on  its  route  to  the 
A  Jungle  of  Vegetation  on  the  Top  of  the        occan.   We  Steam  past  Sitka,  the  seat  of  the  government 

Malaspina  Glacier. 


Spruce  Forest  Killed  by  the  Yahtsee  River  en  route  to  the  Ocean. 


OF  TTTK 

UNIVERSITY 


The  Indian  xn 
of  Sitka. 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN   ARCHIPELAGO  AND  THE   ALASKAN   PENINSULA. 

of  Alaska  under  past  and  present  regimes  and 
observe  it  to  be  a  pleasant  town  of  about  1200,  ^ 

half  of  whom  are  natives.  As  we  proceed 
northwesterly  along  the  line  of  the  coast  the 
grand  and  imposing  form  of  Mount  St.  Elias 
looms  in  sight,  its  summit  draped  in  fog,  its  fiiS£ 
shoulders  epauletted  with  snow.  It  is  18,024  JBfi^'^ 
feet  high,  next  highest  to  Mount  Logan,  which 
stands  behind  it  and  which  is  the  loftiest  height 
of  land  in  North  America. 

Proceeding  westerly  we  shall  pass  the  very 
marshy  delta  of  the  Copper  River,  the  mainland 
forested  with  spruce  and  overhung   by  sombre 

mountains,  every  rift  in  the  ragged  shore  line  being  filled  with  shimmeri:  g  glaciers.  The 
Copper  is  a  swift  and  tortuous  stream,  filled  with  rapids  and  wholly  unnavigable.  Copper 
deposits  are  abundant  upon  it,  .and  gold  is  claimed  to  have  been  found  upon  several  of 
its  northern  bends,  though  I  have  never  seen  such.  Many  expeditions  have  been  fitted 
out  in  San  Francisco  this  year  for  gold  prospecting  on  this  river,  and  some  hope  to  find 
their  way  through  its  Valdez  Pass,  over  an  alleged  Indian  trail,  by  what  is  asserted  to  be 
the  shortest  route  to  the  Klondike  country. 

The  Kenai  Peninsula  is  father  west  and  were  it  not  for  twelve  miles  of  a  "  dead  "  or 
motionless  glacier,  which  connects  it  with  the  mainland,  it  would  be  an  enormous  island. 
A  few  streams  make  from  its  mountainous  interior  into  the  surrounding  waters  and  along 
most  of  these  prospectors  have  traversed  and  found  gold.  The  streams  however,  afiford  the 
only  pathways  to  the  interior,  and  on  the  Kenai,  as  on  the  islands  of  the  archipelago,  the 
surface  is  not  alone  wooded  with  spruce  trees  from  70  to  80  feet  high,  with  hemlock,  red 
cedar,  willow  and  birch,  but  there  is  an  undergrowth  of  brush  so  dense  as  to  be 
impenetrable.  Besides  this,  there  is  a  species  of  spiny  cactus  called  "devil  club,"  with 
fronds  sometimes  eight  feet  in  length,  which  grows  among  the  brush  and  gives  briars  to 
the  tangle.     The  only  trails  through  this  confusion  of  vegetation  are  made  by  the  brown 


The  Village  of  Kadial<. 


x>  r^yt 


16 


AtASKA,    ITS   WAITERS,    LAlSfD   AND   UF'K. 


The  House  of  Klu  Klux,  Chilkat  Chief.  Who  Burned  Fort 
Selkirk  in  iSjz. 

attaining  at  the  flood  a  height  of  over 
thirty  feet. 

As  we  move  south  out  of  Cook 
Inlet  and  along  the  shores  of  that  singular 
trend  of  islands  which  under  the  name 
of  the  Alaskan  Peninsula  reaches  eight 
hundred  miles  into  the  Pacific  Ocean,  we 
may  look  behind  us  and  over  the  moraines 
and  amidst  the  snow,  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  smoking  craters  of  Iliamna  and 
Redoubt,  twin  volcanoes,  burning  away 
on  the  mainland. 

We  proceed,  passing  the  group  of 
Kadiak  Islands,  ten  in  all,  with  Kadiak 
and  its  five  hundred  whites  and  Creoles, 


or  black  bears  coming  down  to  the 
water's  edge  to  strike  salmon  out  of  the 
streams  with  their  paws,  for  these  bears 
live  mostly  upon  fish.  A  region  so 
beset  with  obstructions  to  progress  and 
perils  to  life  is  not  inviting  to  the 
prospector,  which  explains  why  few  of 
these  areas  have  been  explored. 

On  the  west,  between  the  peninsula 
and  the  mainland,  there  is  Cook  Inlet, 
a  great  reach  of  the  sea  which  extends 
away  up  to  the  glacier.  My  schooner 
lay  on  the  muddy  bottom  in  this  inlet 
when  the  tide  was  out,  but  in  a  little 
while  it  came  boiling  in,  running  at 
a  rate  of  nine  or  ten  miles  an  hour, 


Unga  Harbor. 


A  Mummy 


comprising  its  largest  town.  Nearly  every  family  there  has 
a  garden,  given  to  succulent  vegetation,  rare  enough, 
indeed,  in  Alaska.  There  are  Thlingit  natives  there,  too, 
remarkable  for  their  taste  for  designing  upon  wood ;  their 
totem  poles,  carved  trees,  erected  in  front  of  their  dwellings, 
being  symbolic  of  their  families  in  the  tribe. 

On  several  of  the  Kadiaks  there  are  ranches  for  the 
raising  of  fur  foxes,  silver,  black,  blue  and  red.  But  we 
are  moving  along  the  peninsula,  and  we  pause  among  the 
brown  and  hilly  islands  of  the  Shumagins,  entering  Unga 
Harbor,  which  curves  into  a  green  hilly  island  of  that 
name.  It  was  famed  in  the  old  days  for  the  sea  otters 
which  splashed  in  its  caves,  and  it  became  a  center  for  the 
sale  of  their  pelts  ;  but  the  otters  are  gone  now  and  in  the 
vaults  of  the  four  mountains,  Kagmil,  and  the  rest,  repose 
the  dried  carcasses  of  their  Aleut  despoilers,  gone  upon  a 
long  journey,  whither  the  otter  has  disappeared. 


>HEN  we  reach  Unalaska  we  leave  behind  us  all  that  vast  region  of  water  and 
mountain  islands  comprised  under  the  names  of  the  Gulf  of  Alaska  and  the 
Alexandrian  Archipalago.     Only  a  cursory  glance,  under  a  full  head  or  steam  and 

at  full  speed,  has  herein  been  possible  to  us,  yet  it  is  in  area  and  variety  of  life  and  climate 

nigh  a  world  unto  itself.    No  feature  of  it  is  more  remarkable  than  the  excessive  precipitation 

which  almost  throughout  the  year  visits  this  district.     It  lies  upon  the  northern  arm  of 

the  Kuro  Siwa,  the  great  Japanese  warm  current.     Following  its  trend  come  the  heavy- 

moisture-ladened    clouds,    low    lagging    close    to    the 

water's  breast.      They   are    forced   upwards   into   cold 

heights  by   these  towering   mountains  and   there   the 

vapors  are  condensed  and  rain  pours  down  the  slopes  of 

the  islands  and  the  coast  inclines  of  the  mountains  of 

the  main  land.     These  thickly  grown  forests  and  this 

rank  vegetation  is  all  a  product  of  this  rain.     And  yet 

the  temperature  is  equitable.     At  Sitka  the  mean  annual 

record  of  the  thermometer  is  sixty-two  degrees,  about 

the  same  as  at  Washington  City,  yet  the  rain  fall  has 

been  103  inches  in  one  year.      Rain,  fog,   dark  forests 

broken  by   contrasts   of    clear   white  glacier  ice,  high 

mountains,  rugged  and  thrilling  .scenery,  often  agitated 

and  made  wild  by  the  fury  of  some  mighty  storm,  such 

features  linger  with  us  as  a  recollection  while  we  move 

into  Dutch  Harbor,   a  part   of  the   spacious  bay  which 

lies  in  the  arms  of  Unalaska  Island.     An  old  volcano, 

called    Mount   Makushin,  which  occasionally  indulges 

a  smoke,  rises  about  6000  feet  upon  the  northwestern 

interior  of  this  island,  and  the  other  hills  are  steps  to  it, 

sometimes  leaving  a  straggling,  ragged  piece  of  land  in 

the  sea,  which  forms  the  indentations  for  little  bays. 

Farther  east,  on  Unimak,  lies  Shishalden,  puffing  steam 

from  its  mouth  9000  feet  in  the  sky  ;  and  farther  on 

rears  quiet  Pavlof  its  crater  stuffed  with  yellow  sulphur. 
About  two-thirds  of  the  buildings   in   the  town  of 

Unalaska     are     owned     by    the     Ala.ska     Commercial  snap  Shot  at  Cnnery  Salmon. 


12 


AIvASKA,    ITS   WATERS,    LAND   ANb   LIFfe. 


Kilting  Seals  on  St.  George's  Island. 


Company,  which  has,  until  the  recent  appear- 
ance of  a  competing  concern,  controlled 
nearly  all  the  trade.  It  is  a  coaling  station 
for  vessels  going  into  Bering  Sea,  and  hun- 
dreds of  craft  stop  there  during  the  open 
season.  The  town  contains  only  about  400 
persons,  and  of  these  many  of  the  natives  are 
absent  much  of  the  year  engaged  in  hunt- 
ing otter. 

The  salmon  canning  industry  is  chief  among 
the  enterprises  which  engage  the  people  on 
the  peninsula,  as  it  is  the  important  occupa- 
tion of  the  inhabitants  of  the  entire  of  Southeastern  Alaska.  There  are  thirty-two 
canneries  in  all  in  Alaska,  and  their  annual  pack  is  about  fifty  million  pounds.  Alaska 
waters  comprise,  indeed,  a  vast  lake  of  fish.  It  has  twenty-six  thousand  miles  of  cod 
banks,  greater  and  richer  than  those  of  Newfoundland,  and  existing  through  the  same 
natural  causes  as  do  those  of  Newfoundland.  For  as  they  are  upon  the  line  where  the 
warm  waters  of  the  Gulf  Stream  meet  the  cold  ocean  of  the  north,  so  are  these  upon  the 
Arctic  rim  of  the  Kuro  Siwa.  Codfishing  will  be  in  time  one  of  the  greatest  industries  on 
the  Northwest  coast.  The  fish  is  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  the  Atlantic,  and  the  total 
catch  in  one  year  has  been  as  high  as  1,274  tons,  worth  $24,500. 

The  demand  for,  and  great  abundance  of,  salmon  has  turned  the  attention  of  the 
packers  to  this  fish.  During  the  running  season  all  streams  are  alive  with  them  and  they 
may  be  scooped  out  with  dip  nets.  I  have,  standing  in  the  stream,  caught  them  one  in 
each  hand  by  the  tails  and  so  lifted  them  wriggling  out  of  the  water.  The  largest,  fattest 
salmon  are  those  of  the  Yukon.  There  they  attain  a  weight  of  one-hundred  and  twenty 
pounds,  and  four  of  them  will  fill  a  barrel. 

Moving  through  Dutch  Harbor  we  come  into  Bering  Sea,  which  stretches  north  to 
where  the  head  lands  of  Cape  Prince  of  Wales  pinch  the  waters  against  the  coast  of 
Siberia,  form  Bering  Strait,  and  so  define  the  southern  limits  of  the  Polar  ocean.  We  shall 
sight  the  Pribilof  or  Seal  Islands  as  we  pass,  the  islands  on  which  are  the  breeding 
rookeries  and  hauling  grounds  of  the  fur  seals.  The  right  to  take  seals  is  leased  by  the 
government  to  the  North  American  Commercial  Company  and  it  may  take  100,000 
per  year.  Only  the  young  seals,  or 
bachelors,  are  killed,  and  they  are 
driven  about  ten  miles  inland,  there  dis- 
patched with  clubs,  the  carcasses  com- 
prising the  chief  subsistence  of  the 
alert  natives  of  the  islands.  Indiscrim- 
inate pelagic  sealing  by  foreign  vessels 
shooting  seal  in  the  ocean  while  moving 
to  and  from  their  feeding  grounds  on 
the  edge  of  the  warm  current,  has  so 
greatly  reduced  the  number  ot  the 
animals  that  the  attempt  on  part  of  the 
government  to  suppress  these  attacks 
upon  seal  life  has  long  since  become  a 
diplomatic  question. 

As  we  move  eastward  to  the  shore 

of  the  mainland  in  Bering  Sea  we  begin  Kuskwogmults,  Native  Women,  of  the  Kuskokwlm  River  District. 


BERING  SEA   AND  THE  FROZEN   OCEAN. 


13 


MM 

im 

A  Herd  of  Reindeer  at  Teller  Station,  Eskimo  Houses  In  the  Distance. 

to   accumulate  evidences  of  the   fact   that  we  are  drawing  into  Arctic 
Alaska.    Occasional  slabs  of  floating  sheet  ice,  which  have  drifted  down 
from  the  ocean  suggest  this,  and  when  we   reach   the  mouth   of  the 
Kuskokwim  river  and  find  the  natives  living  on  the  blubbers  of  the 
walrus  and  beluga  whale,  on  salmon,  black  and  blue  berries  soaked  in 
seal  oil  and  packed  in  bladders,  on  carrion  salmon  buried  in  the  frozen 
ground,  when  we  see  such  things  the  fact  is  further  impressed  upon  us. 
The  whalers,  searching  the  seas  for  the  baleen  of  the  cetacean  and 
for  the  ivory  of  the  walrus,  have  well  nigh  ridded  the  northern 
waters  of  these  species.     And  as  the  numbers  of  these  have 
been  depleted  the  food  supply  of  the  natives  has  accordingly 
decreased.      Starvation  has  more   than   once   visited 
the  slothful,  harmless  Eskimo  who  inhabit  the  bleak 
slopes  of  the  Bering  Sea,  and  the  total  disappearance 
of  the  aboriginal  Alaskan   would  necessarily  follow 
the  passing  of  the  creatures 
of   his   subsistence.       Ac- 
cordingly, the  government 
has    purchased     from    the 
Chuckchees,  on  the  Siber- 
ian    side,     a     number     of 
domestic  reindeer,  with  the 
view  of  making  the  Eski- 
mo, as  are  the  Siberians, 
herders    of    this     animal. 
Twelve   hundred   of  them 
have    been   imported    into 

Alaska,    and     have    there  p 

been     distributed     to     the  V  '' 

various       missions       whose  Taking  Reindeer  on  Shipboard  at  Siberia. 


OF  TTTR 

1^  UNIVERSITY 


H 


ALASKA,   ITS  WATERS,   LAND   AND   LIFE. 


children  are  taught  to  attend  them.  The 
government,  however,  maintains  the  principal 
station  in  its  own  charge.  The  reindeer  is 
peculiarly  adapted  to  the  climate  of  Alaska, 
in  that  it  eats  moss  with  which  the  whole  of 
the  interior  region  is  covered  ;  cold  and  snow 
have  no  effect  upon  it,  and  its  fur  is  the  warm- 
est and  most  desirable  of  Arctic  clothing.     It 


1 .  > 


Vessels  Frozen  in  the  Arctic  Ocean. 


is  a  fleet  draught  beast,  but  it  cannot  bear  a  pack  except  upon  its  shoulders.     Its  flesh  is  a 
delicacy,  the  milk  is  creamy  and  nutritious,  but  bitter  and  will  not  churn  into  butter. 

From  Teller  Reindeer  Station  at  Port  Clarence,  to  Point  Barrow  at  land's  end  on  the 
north,  the  coast  is  barren,  desolate  and  wild.  Nothing  but  whales  are  there  in  this 
polar  ocean  to  attract  vessels,  but  in  pursuit  of  these,  ships  will  penetrate  the  distance 
far  into  the  latitudes  of  Herald  Island.  Whole  fleets  are  sometimes  caught  in  the 
ice  there.  The  vessels  sail  into  the  sloughs  formed  by 
the  gap  between  the  shore  ice  and  the  sea  ice.  There  comes 
a  time  in  the  fall  when  the  sea  pack  starts  to  move  down 
upon  the  ice  along  the  shore  and  to  close  the  gap.  It  is  in 
these  jaws  that  ships  are  seized,  are  crushed,  masticated  into 
splintery  boluses  and  swallowed  into  the  polar  maw.  At  the 
time  in  which  I  write  there  is  en  route  an  expedition  sent  by 
the  government  to  rescue  a  fleet  of  seven  whalers  cemt  nted 
yonder  in  the  frozen  sea.  Very  terrible  afiairs  are  these 
freezes,  for  rarely  are  the  vessels  saved,  and  too  often  the 
crews  also  perish.  The  miles  of  ice  between  them  and  the 
shore  piled  mountains  high  are  almost  impassable;  and  the 
shore  itself  is  desolate  and  comfortless.  The  whaler  has  the 
option  of  starving  aboard  or  on  land.  When  spring  comes 
and  the  ice  begins  to  move,  the  ships  are  carried  far  to  the 
north  and  east,  in  direction  of  the  pole,  where  they  are 
ultimately  crushed  and  destroyed.  A  number  of  vessels  and 
men  have  been  lost  in  this  way,  and  it  was  with  a  hope  of 
saving  the  lives  at  least  that  the  government  converted  the         cogmuiiik  Esquimo  Wearinjr  Labrets. 


BERING  SEA  AND  THE  FROZEN   OCEAN. 


15 


Whaling  Vessel  Trying  Out  Oil. 


meteorological  observatory  at  Point  Barrow 
into  a  store  house  in  which  there  is  main- 
tained a  year's  provisions  for  at  least  four 
ships'  crews. 

The  vessels  which  I  show  in  the 
picture,  however,  are  not  caught  in  the  ice. 
They  are  at  anchor  in  the  harbor  at  Her- 
schel  Island  and  will  safely  pass  the  winter. 
There  is  another  harbor  in  this  region,  it 
is  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mackenzie  river, 
the  great  Nile  of  the  north.  But  other 
than  in  these  havens  there  is  small  chance 
amidst  the  Arctic  ice  for  a  vessel  once 
seized  ever  again  to  be  released,  and  at 
all  events  it  is  best  that  ships  should 
seek  the  south  rather  than  attempt  to  pass  the  closed  season  in  these  latitudes. 

Though  desolate  indeed,  yet  this  wild  arctic  Alaska  is  not  without  wonders  and  even 
charms.  I  know  a  vast  area  of  plain  within  it,  where  the  snow  never  lies  ;  it  melts  as  fast 
as  it  falls,  and  the  surface  of  the  ground  is  warm.  About  eighty  miles  north  from  the 
northern  coast  and  midway  the  territory  there  is  a  great  lake  of  bitumen,  very  similar  to 
that  lake  at  Trinidad.  South  and  east  of  this  there  is  another  singular  lake,  this  latter  of 
petroleum  oil.  It  is  ten  miles  long  and  seven  miles  wide,  and  the  oil  seeps  into  it  from 
springs  in  the  adjacent  low  hills.  The  depth  has  never  been  sounded,  but  tests  of  the 
fluid  upon  the  surface  show  it  to  be  a  high  grade  petroleum  ;  and  all  around  this  lake  for 
fifty  miles  there  are  vast  deposits  of  coal.  It  is  lignite,  burns  to  a  clean  white  ash,  but  it 
does  not  coke. 

Immense  deposits  of  coal  are  also  found  at  Cape  Lisburne,  about  midway  between  the 
Bering  Strait  and  Point  Barrow,  and  it  is  in  this  district,  growing  out  of  the  coal  seams 
and  upon  the  ice  that,  in  the  early  spring  before  the  ice  cakes  are  melted,  the  most  delicate 
flowers  can  in  abundance  be  found.  Saxifrage,  dandelion,  violets,  grow  amongst  the  vivid 
orange  and  reds  of  the  lichens  and  the  moss,  while  the  white  blossoms  of  the  stunted 
willows  are  greedily  devoured  by  the  coveys  of  grouse  which  feed  upon  them. 

The  flowers  give  a  smiling  contrast  to  the  cheerless  face  of  that  broad  and  boundless 

landscape,  destitute  of  beauty  save 
f  ^  \frt___J|^^^^b9|Mi^^|^|HHB^  these  tender  touches  of  color.     But 

different  is  it  with  the  Arctic  sea. 
In  its  cold  immensity  a  pale  glory 
difi"uses  the  aspect.  We  see  an 
infinite  distance  of  snowy  surface, 
which  you  know  to  be  ice,  resting 
upon  the  water  a  score  of  feet  thick  ; 
an  endless  field  of  ice,  solid  as  the 
floor  of  earth.  And  close  beside  you 
there  are  ice  eminences  jagged  into 
pointed  peaks  and  sharp  angles,  as 
different  from  the  glacier  ice  as 
though  the  materials  were  unlike. 
They  stand  there,  these  rigid  things, 
product  of  some  past  years'  jam,  and 

Point  Barrow  Eskimo-one  woman  4nd  three>en.  off  youder  UpOU  the  wide  sheet  there 


i6 


ALASKA,    ITS   WATERS,    LAND   AND   LIFE. 


Flowers  Growing  on  the  Ice  at  Cape  Lisburne. 


are  more,  and  more  beyond 
them,  so  that  you  might 
fancy  you  were  upon  an 
enormous  plain  broken  by 
craggy  rocks.  But,  some- 
times even  here  there  are 
hours  of  warmth  and  gen- 
iality. In  those  periods 
the  blue  ocean,  floating  its 
Victoria  Regias  of  chalky 
ice,  shall  seem  sensuous  and  serene  beneath  the  high  warm  sun,  when  even  the  broken 
barrier  of  the  Siberian  rock  coast  shall  have  a  softened  feeling  in  its  undulating  lines,  and 
when  polar  nature  is  relaxed  and  mild. 

It  is  in  this  brief  season,  that  not  only  the  flowers  blossom,  as  I  have  said,  but  edible 
vegetation  may  be  culiivated.  In  a  region  where  wild  strawberries  pave  the  earth  with 
their  succulent  fruit,  where  the  big  salmon  berry  is  so  abundant  that  it  is  an  important 
diet  of  bears,  where  you  may  walk  through  miles  of  large,  luscious  huckleberries,  pendant 
from  their  stout,  tough  bushes,  that  such  a  country,  yielding  in  abundance  the  spontaneous 
sweets  of  nature,  should  yet  be  incapable  of  responding  to  the  toil  of  the  agriculturist  is  not 
reasonable  to  suppose.  Though  above  the  Arctic  circle  the  conditions  are  less  favorable  than 
below  it,  yet,  radishes  and  lettuce  have  been  grown  at  Point  Barrow  and  at  Kozerevsky 
and  Nulato,  on  the  Yukon,  the  Catholic  fathers  have  thriving  gardens  of  potatoes, 
cabbages  and  turnips,  while  barley  thrives  in  the  fields  and  cows  are  successfully  herded. 
But  this  season  is  short,  and  soon  again  snow  covers  the  earth,  and  the  long  winter 
night  once  more  enshrouds  the  country.  Then  when  the  sun  has  gone  and  the  gloom  is 
deep  the  heavens  will  be  lit  by  a  singular  demonstration.  Flickering  light  starts  shooting 
in  spsar  points  from  behind  a  broad  low  bank  of  clouds  which  limn  the  horizon.  It  dances 
there  a  moment,  serrated  and  restless,  as  though  it  were  the  effluence  of  a  boil  ng  sea 
beneath.  Then  suddenly  it  springs  upward  and  darts  toward  the  zenith  in  grand,  in 
gorgeous  bars  of  light.  The  low  dark  curtain  has  yielded  its  efi"ulgence  of  glory  and  the 
heavens  are  ablaze  with  a  marvelous  illumination.  For  a  moment  it  scintillates,  beaming 
in  its  colors,  violet  and  gold,  green,  purple  and  red,  then  the  bars  gather  their  ends  in 
the  highest  heavens,  draw  into  a  corona  above  your  head.  As  5'ou  gaze  the  lambent  circle 
contracts  into  a  radient  nimbus.  A  silent  explosion  follows,  and  then  the  materials  of  the 
display,  falling,  disappear  in  a  coruscating  shower,  which  might  seem  to  be  a  blessing  of 
the  Divine  upon  you,  lone  observer  of  this  celestial  spectacular. 


Summer  Scene  on  the  Coast  of  Siberia. 


The  High  Kotusks 


...AND  THE. 


Waters  of  the  Lewis-Yukon. 


HIS  vast  region  of  the  far  north  has  had  always  a  kind 
of  grim  interest  for  me;  that  wide  empire  of  moss- 
grown,  undulating,  tenantless  plain,  stretching  away 
for  thousands  of  square  miles  behind  the  bare  cold  coast 
which  fronts  the  sea  ;  the  great  ocean  of  dark  quiet  water 
contrasting  with  the  white  splotches  of  floating  ice,  and 
beyond,  the  endless  expanse  of  frozen  sea,  still  and  white, 
broken  by  bergs  and  cliffs,  spreading  away  to  the  pole — these 
are  memories  ineradicable  from  the  mind  which  has  once 
beheld  them.  Our  course  now  lies  toward  the  interior  of  Alaska,  however,  and  to  reach  this, 
the  most  traversable  highway  is  the  great  Yukon,  which,  rising  in  the  mountains 
guarding  the  southeast  coast,  makes  a  great  curve,  analogous  to  the  shape  of  the  shore, 
and,  after  flowing  over  2,200  miles,  joins  the  waters  of  the  Bering  Sea. 

The  short  rivers  on  the  coast  are  mostly  swift^and  unnavigable,  but  the  Yukon  can 
be  followed  in  boats  from  the  foot  of  the  Kotusks  to  St.  Michaels,  and  small  steamers  can 
ascend  it  for  over  1,600  miles,  as  far  as  its  only  impediment  to  navigation,  the  White 
Horse  Rapids. 

Passing  Juneau,  we  enter  the  Lynn  Canal,  an  arm  of  the  sea  nearly  sixty  miles  wide, 
and  steaming  almost  north,  we  leave  the  Chilkat  on  the  left,  and  passing  the  peculiar 
peninsula  and  its  straggling  islands  which  separate  the  two  tines  of  the  fluid  fork,  we  follow 
the  Chilkoot  Inlet  to  its  source;  and  here  at  Dyea,  upon  a  little  flat  at  the  foot  of  a  big 
bluff"  of  a  mountain  we  debouch.  Skagway  lies  about  six  miles  to  the  east  and  is  a 
great  cluster  of  tents  pitched  mostly  in  a  swamp  along  the  Skagway  River  at  the  mouth 
of  White  Pass.  That  pass  is  about  1000  feet  lower  than  the  Tyia  (/.  e.,  to  pack)  or 
Chilcoot  Pass,  and  is  altogether  within  the  timber  line.  The  road  is  on  an  easy  incline 
and  horses  may  readily  travel  over  it.  By  reason,  however,  of  the  almost  incessant  rains, 
the  way  is  muddy  and  slippery,  and  the  short  portion  of  the  road  which  has  been 
corduroyed  offers  slight  facilities  for  travel. 

At  Skagway  and  Dyea,  all  is  tumult  and  confusion.  Log  and  timber  shacks,  in 
which  merchandising  is  conducted  and  saloons  with  gambling  tables  are  kept,  and  tents 
galore  with  provisions  stacked  in  canvas  sacks,  many  of  them  standing  out  in  the  rain,  an 
idle  population  in  groups  about  the  towns,  waiting  to  perfect  arrangements  for  starting 
over  the  passes,  these  are  the  scenes  which  crowd  upon  one  making  a  casual  survey  of 
both  places 

And  all  along  the  six  miles  up  Dyea  River  men,  and  even  women  with  little  children, 
are  pressing  their  way,  the  men  towing  boats  loaded  with  provisions,  the  women  trudging 
along  dragging  their  babies  by  the  hands.  We  enter  the  canyon  where  the  trail  becomes 
rough  and  starts  to  rise.     From  thence  on  it  crosses  streams  or  marshes,  is  strewn  with 


i8 


ALASKA,   ITS   WATERS,    LAND    AND   LIFE. 


Dyea  from  the  River. 


Along  the  Course  of  the  Dyea  River. 


bowlders  and  is  at  times  broken  and  steep. 
Several  little  camps  are  upon  the  way-side. 
Sheep  Camp,  famed  amongst  the  Chilkoots 
as  the  spot  where  many  mountain  sheep 
were  killed,  is  1,200  feet  above  tidewater 
and  has  several  frame  buildings  where 
you  may  get  a  rough  meal  for  a  dollar 
and  sleep  under  shelter  for  a  dollar  and  a 
half.     Stone   House,   at   the   end  of  the 

timber  line,  is 
two  miles  fur- 
ther on  over  a 
steep  and  muddy 
trail,  and  is  the 
next  camping 
place.  It  is  a  big 
jutting  of  rock 
on  the  mountain 
affording  a  sort 
of  cove  shelter 
from  the  strong 
sea  winds  which 
strike  with  their 
full  force  against 
the  mountain's  face.  The  trail  is  somewhat  easier  for  the  next  two  miles  at  the  end  of 
which  the  camping  place  called  the  Scales  is  reached  ;  here  it  was  that  the  packers  used 
to  weigh  their  packs,  which  they  carried  over  the  pass  for  hire,  charging  ten  cents  per 
pound  of  burden.  The  rush  of  Klondikers  has  raised  this  price  very  much,  and  I  have 
known  as  high  as  forty  cents  per  pound  to  be  charged.  The  packing  has  heretofore  been 
done  solely  by  the  Chilkat  and  Chilkoot  Indians  and,  until  recently,  these  Indians  ex- 
clusively have  held  the  right  to  cross  the  passes  ;  the  Chilkats  so  holding  their  pass  at  the 
head  of  the  river  of  that  name,  and  the  Chilkoots  likewise  maintaining  theirs.  This  was  done 
because  of  a  monopoly  of  trade  claimed  by  these  Indians  with  the  interior  natives  between 
whom  exchange  of  products  of  the  sea  for  land  furs  was  conducted  during  the  spring  and 
summer  seasons.  Lately,  however,  the  Indians  have  found  more  profit  in  carrying  the 
packs  of  whites  going  over  the  trails,  than  in  trading  with  the  interior  Sticks,  and  they 

have  abandoned  their  heretofore  self  

asserted  and    extensive  privileges  in 
the  mercantile  line. 

At  the  Scales,  we  are  at  the  base 
of  that  obtuse  angle  formed  by  the 
precipitous  rise  of  the  final  mile  of 
the  trail,  before  the  summit  is  reached. 
We  have  been  ascending  along  the 
bottom  of  a  ravine  with  high  hills 
on  either  hand  ;  now  the  way  presents 
a  bolder,  broader  aspect,  and  at  times 
it  is  nearly  perpendicular.  Horses, 
however,  have  been  gotten  over  this 

rise,  bearing  their  burdens  to  its  foot.  Last  of  the  Even  Trail  Before  Entering  Dyea  Canyon. 


THE    HIGH    KOTUSKS   AND   THE   WATERS    OK   THE   LEWIS   YUKON. 


»9 


then  being  unloaded  and  gotten  over  light,  the  packs  carried  up  by  men  who  put  them  on 
the  horse  at  the  summit,  from  whence  there  is  an  easy  grade  down  to  the  chain  of  lakes. 
In  the  early  eighties,  when  Schwatka  made  his  famous  trip  over  this  pass  and  along 
the  Lewis-Yukon,  the  "  forcing  of  the  mountains  "  was  considered  a  remarkable  feat.  But 
really  there  is  nothing  extraordinary  about  it.  I  have  travesed  many  routes  and  passes  in 
the  Sierra  Nevadas  and  the  Montana  Rockies  that  were  far  more  difficult  than  is  any  pass 
in  the  Kotusks.  The  only  perilous  feature  about  the  latter  occurs  in  the  winter  season 
when  the  mountains  are  visited  by  frequent  and  terrible  blizzards,  in  which  one,  if  caught 
on  or  near  the  summit,  may  be  frozen  to  death.  But  he  is  very  foolish  to  suffer  thus  if  he 
be  so  caught,  for  he  may  retreat,  wherever  he  is,  and  camp.     If  he  is  on  the  inner  .side,  a 


short   run   back 

shelter,  and  if  he 

roll  down  to  the 

storm.      It    is 

the  Dyea  River 

from  the  summit 

side.     Blue  gla- 

side,  and  the 

along  the   slope 

first  of  these  is 

before  you  reach 

mile  or  more  in 

trail.  When  you 

Lake  Lindeman 

through  a  vista 

tanceyou  behold 

of   blue  crystal 

wooded     shores 

mountains    that 

hand.   This  lake 

long     and    per- 

It  is  calm  in  summer,  though 

over    it   out   of  the   passes. 

get  a  grip  sufficiently  strong 

to  ruffle  them  until  the  long 

Bennett  is  reached,  when  the 

strong   that   the    surface   is 

motion  dangerous  to  boats. 

of  slender   spruce  and  pine 


Ihe  Steep  Rise  on 
the  Chilkoot. 


Arriving  at  Crater  Lake,  across  the  Summit. 


will  soon  bring  him  to  a  place  of 
is  on  the  coast  incline  he  can  almost 
Scales,  and  find  refuge  from  the 
about  twelve  miles  from  the  head  ot 
to  the  summit  and  almost  five  miles 
to  the  mountain's  feet  on  the  land 
cier  ice  surrounds  you  on  this  inner 
seepage  from  them  drains  into  pots 
which  have  formed  lakes.  The 
Crater  Lake,  and  you  pass  another 
Lake  Lindeman.  These  lakes  are  a 
length  and  are  on  the  course  of  the 
reach  the  end  of  the  last  one, 
opens  upon  you 
and  in  the  dis- 
an  eleptical  sheet 
with  darkly 
lying  between 
loom  on  either 
is  about  six  miles 
haps  a  mile  wide, 
the  wind  whistles 
Still  these  do  not 
upon  the  waters 
sweep  of  Lake 
wind  becomes  so 
often  lashed  into 
A    thick    growth 


timber   lines    the 

banks  of  these  lakes,  but  that  from  about  Lake  Lindeman  is  now  very  rapidly  disappearing 
before  the  prospectors'  ax.  Boat  building  is  the  most  needful  industry  hereabouts,  and  it 
consumes  a  week  to  whipsaw  out  timber  to  build  a  scow.  This  done,  however,  and  the 
vessel  constructed,  the  trip  down  to  Dawson  may  be  accomplished  in  about  twelve  days, 
making  in  all  about  fourteen  or  fifteen  days  of  travel  from  the  start  at  Dyea. 

This  tedious  business  of  boat  building  completed,  we  load  the  craft  with  our  stores  and 
proceed.  The  current  runs  about  four  miles  an  hour,  the  wind  is  with  us,  and  a  little 
paddling  sends  us  pleasantly  along.  But  for  the  prevalence  of  rain  and  fog,  much  lighter 
here  than  on  the  seaboard,  however,  the  journey  would  be  pleasant  enough.  Glacial  ice  is 
still  in  sight  setting  high  on  the  caps  of  the  mountains,  and  as  we  approach  the  narrow 


20 


AI,ASKA,   ITS   WATERS,   LAND   AND    IvIFE- 


Stream  which  joins  the  I,indeman  with  Lake  Bennett,  there  comes  in  sight  upon  our  right, 
protruding  through  the  straggling  pines  upon  the  mountain  tops,  great  masses  of  dull  red 
rock  which  give  a  gloomy  tone  to  the  entire  landscape. 

Lake  Bennett  is  larger  than  Lindeman,  being  about  twenty-eight  miles  long,  but  is 
upon  the  average  very  little  wider.     In  fact,  all  these  lakes  are  simply  levels,  where  the 


Lake 


Lindeman. 


Lewis     has     spread ; 

a  few  feet  deep  ;  when 

again  then  the  current 

stretches  into  a  river, 

finds     another    level, 

and  there  is  another 

have     Tagish     Lake 

then  a  six  mile  river 

a  long  stretch  of  river, 

which  there  is  White 

these  there  is  the  last 

the  system,  Lebarge, 

long.     While   not   at 

scenery    along    these 

same.      The  shelving  banks  rise 

pines,  the  mountains  which  flank 

snow.     Along  the  shores  of  some 

Lake,  great  quantities  of  fluvial 

tributary   streams,   so   that   the 

is   late   spring   and  as  we  pass 

are   blooming   among  the   high 

banks.     We    keep   well    in   the 

exhaled  from  the  land,  like  an 

swarms  of  the  most  vicious  mos- 

are  not  as  bad  as  in  some  other 

Koskokwin    which 

Sea,    I    have   known 

vicious  that  the  only 

tacks  is  by  surround- 

smoking  fires,  and  in 

have  been  detailed  to 

throughout  the  night. 

Yukon  is  in  the  same 

not  in  such  numbers 

there ;    but    this   dis- 

their  population   and 

and  at  other  places  is 

by  the  presence  of  a 

of  the  most  effective 

introduced  by  nature 

humans.      A    green 

tinguished  pest  on   the 

the  whites. 

At  White  Horse  Canyon  the  river  increases  its   gait  to  ten  miles  an   hour,  plunges 
through  narrow  walls  of  black  basalt  and  runs  over  sunken  boulders  in  foaming  rapids. 


Lake  Bennett. 


Yukon  flats   and   appears  to   annoy  the 


none  of  them  are  over 

the    surface    inclines 

increases  and  the  lake 

and  runs  on  until  it 

where  it  again  spreads 

lake.    So  it  is  that  we 

after  a  two  mile  river, 

and  Marsh  Lake,  then 

about     midway     of 

Horse  Rapids,  beyond 

and    largest    lake   in 

about  thirty-two  miles 

all    monotonous,    the 

lakes    is     much    the 

wooded  with  a  small   growth  of 

them   barren    and    seamed    with 

of    the    lakes,   especially    Marsh 

mud  have  been  brought  down  by 

shores  are  deep  with  muck.     It 

along,  wild  violets  and  red  roses 

grass   and    wild    onions    on    the 

middle  of  the  stream,  for  there  is 

irritating   consuming    miasma. 

Though  bad  here,  they 

Alaska,    and    on    the 

flows  into  the  Bering 

them  so  numerous  and 

escape  from  their  at- 

ing    the    party    with 

our  camps  there,  men 

maintain    these    fires 

Though     the     lower 

locality,  yet  they  are 

nor   so    blood-thirsty 

crepancy    between 

voracity  on  the  Yukon 

abundantly     repaired 

small  black  gnat,  one 

engines  of  torture  ever 

to     act    against     the 

sand  fly  is  also  a  dis- 

Indians   as   greatly  as 


OF  TRK 


nJNIVERSITY  j 
THE  HIGH   KOTtJSKS  AND  THE  WATERS  OF  THE  LEWIS-YUKON. 


21 


Bulldine  Boats  at  Lake  Bennett. 


So  Swift  is  the  current  at  this  place 

that  the  water  washing  the  wall  on 

the  right,  leaps  up  high  against  the 

rock  and  curls  back  and  over  with  a 

foamy  cap  like  a  roller  upon  the  ocean 

beach.     It  is  dangerous  to  attempt  to 

navigate  these  rapids,  and  foolhardy 

men  who  have  done  so  have  paid  for 

their  folly  with  their  lives.     There  is 

a  portage  on  the  hill  to  the  left  and 

some  one  is  constructing  a  cableway 

over  this  trail  for  the  aid  of  travelers 

and  for  his  own  profit.     When  this  is 

finished  and  when  the  hoist  ^n  the 

high   lap    of   the    Chilcoot    Pass    is 

working,  when   the   ferry   boats   are 

plying  the  lakes  on  the  mountain  and  the  saw  mill  at  Lake  Bennett  is  buzzing  out  timber 

for  boats,  when  all  these  facilities  are  in  operation  the  trip  from   Dyea  to  Dawson  will  be 

plucked  of  some  of  its  most  exquisite  terrors  and  most  provoking  obstacles. 

Rink  Rapids  with  their  black  stack  rocks  in  the  water  are  easily  run,  and  we  approach 

Fort  Selkirk  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Yukon,  across  from  the  mouth  of  the  Pelly  River, 

which  curves  in  from  the  south  and  east.     All  there  is  now  left  of  this  old  station  of  the 

Hudson  Bay  Company  are  two  or  three  sooty  mud  chimneys  and  some  charred  timbers.    In 

1852,  it  was  inhabited  by  eight  men  of  the  company,  who  with  a  party  of  Tagish  Indians, 

left  it  for  a  day  to  pursue  a  hunt.     During  their  absence  the  place  was  pounced  upon  by  the 

Chilkat  Klu  Klux,  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  coast  natives,  who  had  sworn  war  against  the 

the  whites  because  they  traded  with  the  interior  Indians  and  thereby  turned  them  aside 

from   trafl&c  with   the   Chilkats.     Klu   Klux    robbed   the   buildings,  then   burned  them 

and  returned 

"In  savage  glory,  home." 

It  is  not  related  that  he  or  his  tribe  was  ever  punished  for  their  outrage,  and  the 
expedition  seemed  to  have  resulted  as  he  had  hoped,  for  the  place  was  abandoned  and  the 
company  shortly  after  withdrew  from  the  territory. 

Dark  mountains  crowd  each  other  on  either  hand  from  Fort  Selkirk  on,  and  the  river 
widens  much  since  it  has  absorbed  the  Pelly.  Sea  gulls  flit  in  white  flocks  and  maintain  a 
garrulous  chattering  among  the  rocks,  while  the  trim  martens  fly  about  their  cave  nests, 

which  they  dig  in  the  faces  of  the  cliffs, 
and  appear  alarmed  at  our  approach. 
At  White  River,  a  great  stream  making 
in  from  the  west,  the  character  of  the 
Yukon  changes.  Heretofore,  it  has  been 
a  clear  current,  sometimes  heightening 
its  crystalline  transparency  with  a  tinge 
of  blue.  Now,  however,  on  receiving 
the  White,  its  waters  turn  muddy  and 
ever  after  they  continue  thus.  The 
White  is  well  named ;  it  carries  in 
solution  a  talc  which  renders  it 
opaque.  Henceforth  the  pretty  graylings 
The  Rink  Rapids.  which   wc  caught  iu    such   abundaucc 


22 


ALASKA,   ITS  WATERS,    LAND  AND  LIFE. 


The  Portage  around  White  Horse  Rapids. 

above,  we  can  catch  no  more  ;  they  must  be  taken  with  a  net  for  they  cannot  see  the  hook. 
We  shall  pass  the  Upper  Ramparts  as  we  proceed  and  find  them  to  be  a  high  bluff  on 
the  left  of  the  river,  curiously  eroded  by  the  action  of  the  weather  into  many  turret-like 
points,  a  conspicuous  configuration  on  the  river's  course.  On  our  way  we  have  observed 
numerous  quartz  croppings  on  the  mountain  slopes,  and  as  quartz  is  vein  silica,  it  may  be 
mineralized  or  not.  Occasionally  the  wires  of  the  telegraph  from  Vancouver  or  Seattle 
tremble  with  reports  brought  out  by  some  returning  Klondikers  that  the  most  sensational 
finds  of  gold  veins  have  been  made  in  the  Dawson  country,  but  I  believe  almost  all  these 
statements  are  eflfects  of  the  emotions.  Quartz  is  abundant  in  the  Klondike  hills  as  it  is 
everywhere  throughout  the  gold  scope  of  Alaska,  but  up  until  Christmas,  1897,  such  assays 
as  had  been  made  of  specimens  taken  from  the  locality,  had  proved  barren.  Taber,  the 
San  Francisco  photographer,  who  has  photographed  extensively  over  some  parts  of  Alaska, 
and  a  few  of  whose  views  I  print  herein,  tells  however,  of  a  strike  recently  made  on  the 
Lewis,  near  the  Big  Salmon  River,  the  assays  of  which  showed  seventy-one  ounces  of 
silver  and  two  ounces  of  gold.  There  will  unquestionably  be  rich  and  extensive  quartz 
finds  made  in  the  Yukon  district,  but  such  will  not  occur  until  the  attention  of  miners  have 
•been  largely  drawn  from  placer  mining  or  the  present  population  of  the  country,  which 
outside  of  Dawson,  is  about  3000,  receives  such  accretions  that  the  readily  located  placer 

ground  becomes  taken,  and  hunting  for  quartz  will 
be  as  easy  as  seeking  new  placers.  As  it  is  the 
conditions  are  much  against  prospecting  for  veins. 
The  hills  are  covered  with  moss  to  a  depth  of 
three  feet,  which  obscures  the  ledges,  makes 
walking  exceedingly  difficult  and  most  of  the  year 
this  moss  is  solidified  by  a  concrete  of  ice. 
But  we  are  at  Dawson  and  there  arrives  with  us 
a  great  concourse  of  people,  in  uncouth  boats  with 
smoking  stoves,  boats  wherein  they  have  been 
confined  for  the  fortnight  past.  They  have  floated 
with  us  from  Lake  Lindeman  down  and  now  have. 
Winter  Quarters  at  the  Mouth  of  the  Peiiy.  ^OT  better  or  worsc,  reached  their  destination. 


Kl.ONDVKE 


RIVER 


The        [1 
Gold- 
Placers  J  J 
of  the 

Klondike 

^^^^'   Creeks. 


*HERE  has  been  some  little  prospecting  done  about 
Hootalinqua  and  Pelly  Rivers,  but  only  colors 
have  been  found,  and  bed  rock  could  not  be  reached 
because  shafts  were  sunk  in  the  warm  season,  and  the 
water  coming  in  at  the  bottom  drove  the  workers  out.  On 
the  Stewart  a  shaft  was  put  down  to  bed  rock,  but  few 
traces  have  rewarded  the  enterprise.  These  cursory 
examinations  are  by  no  means  convincing  that  there  is  not 
gold  in  paying  quantities  yet  to  be  found  in  the  districts 
thus  prospected.  Indeed,  the  prospecting  which  has  been 
done  in  the  auriferous  districts  of  Alaska  is  so  slight  as  compared  with  the  area  that  no 
opinion  upon  the  gold-bearing  possibilities  of  localities  outside  of  those  upon  which 
development  has  actually  taken  place  are  worth  the  printing.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  there 
is  any  such  thing  as  a  gold  belt  or  mother  lode  in  Alaska.  This  is  the  opinion  of  Charles 
G.  Yale,  one  of  the  leading  mining  and  mineralogical  experts  of  San  Francisco,  who  has 
looked  the  ground  carefully  over,  and  nothing  that  I  have  seen  or  heard  has  changed  this 
idea  in  my  mind.  Prior  to  the  discoveries  in  the  Klondike,  all  the  mining  had  been  done 
on  the  south  side  of  the  Yukon,  along  the  many  brooks  which  flow  north  and  join 
that  stream ;  along  Sixty  Mile  Creek,  Forty  Mile  Creek,  American  Creek,  on  tributaries  of 
Birch  Creek,  that  small  river  which  meets  the  Yukon  upon  its  westward  bend.  This  is 
the  region  in  which  the  mining  had  been  conducted,  and  on  some,  particularly  on  the 
streams  of  Birch  Creek,  excellent  results  had  been  obtained.  They  had  built  up  the 
adjacent  town  of  Circle  City,  and  in  four  months  of  last  year  the  Birch  Creek  output  was 
about  $300,000.  These  gold  diggings  of  Alaska  have  for  the  past  ten  years  been  a  safe 
place  for  a  laborer  to  go.  Working  upon  his  own  claim  he  could  always  make  wages, 
which  are  there  rated  at  ten  dollars, per  day,  and  he  could  feel  that  he  had  constantly  a 
chance  of  striking  some  rich  deposit,  or  at  least  he  would  be  in  the  district  if  it  should 
occur  that  rich  strikes  were  made  elsewhere,  and  he  could  accordingly  be  first  among  the 
rush  to  such  a  place. 

If  you  will  refer  to  the  map  of  Alaska  you  will  observe  that  the  territory  of  which  I 


1  y 


24 


ALASKA,    ITS   WATERS,   LAND   AND   LIFE. 


Si.Ntv  Mile  Post. 


speak,  while  it  lies  south  of  the  Yukon,  and 
is  concave  in  shape  to  meet  the  great  bend 
which  the  river  makes,  3^et  it  is  a  vast  stretch 
of  country.  In  topography  it  is  broken  by 
sporadic  mountains,  in  which  the  streams 
head,  and  interspersed  by  high  plateaus. 
Nothing  like  consecutive  trend  or  range  can 
be  made  of  these  elevations,  and  the  same 
remark  is  applicable  to  the  deposits  of  gold. 
We  know  gold  is  found  in  paying  quantities  on 
Sixty  Mile,  and  it  is  found  in  like  abundance 
at  Minook^  over  two  hundred  miles  below  the 
Porcupine ;  and  farther  down  the  Yukon 
where  the  great  Tanana  makes  in,  promising 
colors  have  been  found.  Further  down  still  and  on  the  opposite  side,  on  the  Koyukuk, 
other  good  prospects  have  been  discovered  and  some  little  gold  has  been  taken  out.  But 
neither  of  these  streams  has  even  been  explored,  so  that  nothing  is  more  clear  than  that 
gold  is  scattered,  here  and  there,  all  over  the  interior  of  Alaska,  and  that,  so  far  as  our 
knowledge  now  exists,  any  talk  of  a  definite  gold  belt  is  an  absurdity.  In  fact,  I  have 
never  heard  of  but  one  river  in  Alaska  upon  which  all  qualified  to  speak,  seem  to  agree 
that  there  is  no  gold,  and  that  is  the  White. 

But  even  in  the  most  mined  part  of  interior  Alaska,  that  south  of  the  Yukon,  few  of 
the  streams  have  been  investigated  or  even  explored,  and  a  vast  unpenetrated  domain  is 
there,  awaiting  prospectors.  Upon  the  north  side  a  very  much  less  area  is  known.  An 
idea  of  the  Klondike  district  may  be  gotten  from  the  following  facts: — 

The  Yukon  River,  a  narrow  muddy  stream,  flows  at  the  foot  of  a  low  range  of  mess 
covered  hills,  which  rise  upon  the  north.  The  country  of  these  hills  is  exceedingly  rugged 
and  wild,  the  creeks  which  cut  them  being  deep  and  narrow.  There  flow  into  it  out  of 
these  hills,  and  at  right  angles  with  the  river,  the  following  streams,  they  being  from 


First  Steamboat  Reaching  the  Site  of  Dawson  After  the  Klondike  Discoveries. 


THE  GOLD   PLACBRS   OP  THB  KI.ONDIKK  CRKKKS. 


25 


twelve  to  fifteen  miles  apart :  The  Klondike,  a  blue,  shallow  and  rapid  river,  then  next 
east  Dion  Creek,  then  further  east  Bryant  Creek,  then  Montana  Creek,  then  Indian  River, 
smaller  than  the  Klondike,  then  Henderson  Creek,  and  finally  and  further  east,  Stewart 
River,  about  the  size  of  the  Klondike.     Such  are  the  streams  emptying  into  the  Yukon. 

On  the  Klondike  the  streams  which  bear  the  gold  run  from  the  hills  upon  the  east  of 
the  river.  The  first  creek  is  Bonanza,  the  next  Bear,  the  third  Hunker,  the  fourth  Too- 
Much-Gold,  and  the  fifth  All-Gold.  These  creeks  are  from  twelve  to  fifteen  miles  apart, 
and  each  empties  into  the  Klondike. 

Bonanza  also  has  trilnitaries.  Those  which  have  been  prospected  and  have  received 
names  run  into  it  from  the  south.  These  are  Boulder,  Adams,  Skookum  and  Eldorado. 
Upon  Hunker  Creek  the  tributaries,  also  from  the  south,  are  Last  Chance  and  Gold  Bottom. 

The  gold  bearing  tributaries  of  Indian  River  flow  out  of  the  same  hills  that  the 


Dawson,  from  Across  the  Yukon.      The  Klondike  Hills  are  on  the  Right  of  the  Picture. 

Klondike  creeks  drain,  though  upon  the  opposite  or  eastern  slope.  The  Klondike  creeks 
flow  from  the  east,  the  Indian  River  creeks  flow  from  the  west.  They  are  Ophir,  Quartz, 
Sulphur  and  Dominion,  which  latter  two  join  as  forks  and  meet  the  Indian  as  one  creek. 

Some  prospecting  has  been  done  on  all  the  creeks  named  on  Indian  River,  but  it  is 
only  in  its  tentative  stages.  Thus  far  the  indications  are  excellent  for  large  deposits.  On 
the  Klondike  no  probing  has  been  done  above  Hunker  Creek  ;  most  of  the  streams  are  yet 
to  be  named  ;  even  the  length  of  the  Klondike  River  is  not  yet  known  ;  from  the  size  of 
the  stream  at  its  mouth,  however,  it  is  though  to  be  about  250  miles  long,  and  of  this 
length  not  over  12  miles  have  been  prospected.  In  the  network  of  creeks  I  have  named 
there  are  about  350  linear  miles,  all  of  which  have  been  taken  up  in  claims.  There  is  no 
room  for  doubt  that  the  gold  in  the  creeks  has  come  out  of  the  adjacent  hills,  that  it  has 
been  eroded  from  veins  there  by  weathering  and  transported  by  the  vehicle  of  water  into 
the  creek  bottoms  by  whose  rock  riffles  it  was  caught  and  held.  The  glacial  theory,  that 
the   gold   has   been   conveyed  from  long  and   unknown   distances   by   the   movement  of 


26 


AI.ASKA,   ITS   WATERS,   LAND   AND   LIFE. 


Skookum  Gulch.—  $250000  was  paid  for  two  claims  on  this  Gulch  from  which  $30,000  was  taken  in  six  weeks. 


Claim  No.  12,  Eldorado  Creek.— Mining  by  shafts  sunk  to  bed  rock,  the  dirt  raised  in  buckets  by  windlasses,  is  dumped 
into  a  sluice  box.    Over  $20,000  was  taken  from  one  of  these  12  x  16  feet  boxes. 


THK  GOLD   PLACERS  OF  THE   KLONDIKE  CREEKS. 


27 


Forty  Mile. 

Upon  this  theory  Ophir  and  Quartz 


ice,  i.s,  to  ray  mind,  untenable. 
The  country  is  lacking  in  glacial 
evidences,  and  it  is  questionable 
whether  they  have  ever  existed 
here. 

El  Dorado,  which  is  really 
an  extention  of  Bonanza  Creek, 
and  properly  is  Bonan/,i  Creek, 
is  the  richest  of  the  placers,  and 
this  would  mean  that  the  veins 
which  have  furnished  all  the 
the  gold  were  cut  by  the  head- 
waters of  this  creek ;  accordingly, 
I  have  thought,  that  the  creeks 
upon  the  other  side  of  the  divide, 
which  head  about  where  the  EI 
Dorado  heads,  will  contain  great  quantities  of  gold. 
Creeks  ought  to  develope  well  in  the  metal. 

Bonanza  Creek  is  about  twenty-three  miles  long  and  has  claims  upon  every  five  hundred 
feet  of  its  length,  containing  in  all  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  claims.  El  Dorado  is  eight 
miles  long  and  has  sixty-four  claims.  The  gold  in  each  lies  at  from  eighteen  to  twenty-two 
feet  below  the  surface,  mostly  upon  a  bed  rock  of  shale,  the  upper  measure  of  which  has 
been  split  by  freezing,  and  the  gold,  enveloped  in  a  clay  cement,  has  found  its  way  into  the 
crevices  of  this  rock.  It  is  sprinkled  too,  quite  liberally,  through  the  lower  gravels  of  the 
deposits,  but  the  upper  zones  of  it  do  not  contain  over  fifty  cents  to  the  panful  of  dirt. 
Five  or  six  feet  of  the  surface  material  is  a  deposit  of  vegetable  mold,  rendering  the 
ravines  exceedingly  unsuggestive  to  the  miner  of  their  auriferous  contents.  The  entire  of 
this  ground  is  frozen  throughout  the  year,  except  about  three  months  of  summer,  when  the 
two  feet  of  surface  muck  is  thawed.  This  frozen  state  is  favorable  for  drift  mining,  for 
the  ground  in  the  shafts  and  tunnels  sustains  itself  and  does  not  have  to  be  supported  by 
timbering.  The  material  is  taken  out  during  the  winter  season  by  thawing  with  fires 
which  are  started  at  night  in  the  workings.  When  lifted  to  the  surface  it  is  piled  up  and 
on  the  opening  of  spring,  when  the  water  begins  to  run  in  the  creeks,  it  is  sluiced  in  boxes 

in  the  ordinary  way. 

The  gold  in  these  creeks  does 
not  lie  uniformly  across  the  bot- 
toms, but  is  in  streaks  and  spots, 
and    .some    claims,    even     on    El 
Dorado  Creek,  are  almost  barren. 
But  the  pay  spots  are  so  rich  that 
there   can   be    small    doubt    that 
El  Dorado  will  average  a  yield  of 
$1,000  per  running  foot  over  the 
whole  length  of  the  creek,  and  that 
the  entire  creek  will  turn  out  about 
$40,000,000.      Bonanza  Creek  will 
yield  at  a  less  rate,  and  the  other 
creeks,   so  far   as   is   known,    will 
grade  down  still  smaller,  I  estimate 
A  Street  in  Circle  City.  that  the  output  for  the  summcr  of 


28 


AI^ASKA,   ITS   WATERS,   LAND   AND   I.TPB. 


1898  from  the  whole  district  will  be  about  $12,000,000,  and  that  next  year  it  will  be  two 
or  three  times  that  quantity. 

Pans  of  dirt  which  wash  out  $800  do  not  prove  the  richness  of  a  district,  any  more 
than  those  pans  which  reveal  merely  colors  ;  but,  upon  the  whole,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  Klondike  Creeks  are  enormously  rich.  Of  late  it  has  become  common  to  talk  down 
the  locality  and  we  hear  statements  that  it  does  not  amount  to  very  much  after  all.  But 
these  derogations  arise  from  a  movement  among  the  big  claim  owners  to  have  the  Canadian 
government  repeal  the  ten  per  cent  royalty  act,  upon  the  ground  that  the  claims  cannot 
aflford  to  pay  it.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  act  was  just,  for  surely  the  land  belonging 
to  the  government,  it  is  entitled  to  some  revenue  from  it,  and  when  it  is  to  be  considered 
that  this  will  be  spent  in  aflfording  public  facilities  to  the  people  there  it  might  be  cheer- 
fully yielded. 

The  Canadian  mining  laws  are  made  for  the  people,  those  of  the  United  States  promote 
monopoly.  On  Canadian  ground  one  man  may  take  up  only  200  feet  of  a  creek  bed,  he 
can  locate  but  one  claim  in  a  district,  and  if  he  leaves  the  claim  for  seventy-two  hours  he 
forfeits  his  rights  to  it.  On  the  American  side  he  may  stake  off  1500  feet  claims,  and  he 
may  have  as  many  of  them  as  he  pleases.  It  costs  him  nothing  to  hold  them  for  an  entire 
year,  and  his  title  is  renewed  if  he  has  exerted  $100  of  labor  upon  each  of  them.  He  may, 
therefore,  seize  a  whole  creek  and  all  its  branches.  Under  this  arrangement  a  few  men 
would  have  owned  all  the  Klondike  placers,  and  the  balance  of  the  3000  who  are  now 
working  in  them  would  be  simply  laborers,  and  wages  would  not  be  $1.50  an  hour 
either.  Two  hundred  feet  of  ground  of  average  richness  will  afford  any  man  a  moderate 
fortune,  and  the  limited  gold  lands  may  be  shared  by  thousands,  instead  of  by  hundreds. 

On  the  left  bank  of  the  Klondike,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Yukon,  is  the  town  of 
Klondike,  and  on  the  right  bank  is  Dawson.  It  is  an  unlovely  spot,  built  on  a  muck 
marsh,  its  establishments  chiefly  comprising  saloons.  Its  structures  are  tents  or  miserable 
log  shacks,  the  largest  building  in  the  town  being  a  dance  hall.  Gold  is  abundant  about 
town,  all  in  dust  and  nugget  form,  but  food  is  correspondingly  high  A  cup  of  coffee  costs 
fifty  cents  and  a  poor  meal,  $2.50.  Some  were  pinched  by  hunger  during  the  past 
winter,  but,  like  the  gold  in  the  creeks,  some  had  abundance  and  to  spare,  while  others 
were  nearly  without.  Equally  divided  there  would  have  been  plenty  for  all.  We  shall  not 
tarry  here,  it  is  an  unpleasant  place,  so  again  on  the  tawny  water,  we  are  en  route. 


In  ComforUble  Winter  Quarters  on  the  Porcupine;  Thermometer  Seventy-two  Degrees  Below  Zero. 


The  Great  Yukon 


FROM    THE  ... 


Porcupine  to  the  Delta, 


(ERHAPS  an  oomeak,  one  of  those  long  boats  built 
by  the  Yukon  Indians,  covered  with  walrus  hide 
two  inches  thick,  and  capable  of  carrying  twelve 
persons,  would  be  as  comfortable  a  vessel  in  which 
to  navigate  the  great  Yukon  as  any.     For  from   Dawson 
some  hundreds  of  miles  below,  the  river  is  very  shallow, 
and  last  winter  some  of  the  lightest  draft  steamers,  drawing 
but  three  feet  of  water,  were  unable  to  ascend  higher  than 
ampart    ity.  Circle  City.     The  river,  encrusted  with  ice  during  eight 

months  of  the  year,  opens  in  June,  first  breaking  at  its  headwaters,  where  the  streams 
between  the  lakes  rarely  freeze.  A  month  later  the  lower  Yukon  melts  and  though  the 
ice  blocks  jam  and  pile  here  for  a  while,  tearing  down  islands  and  building  others,  yet  they 
finally  succumb  to  the  increasing  heat  of  the  recurring  days,  and  presently  the  great 
sluggish,  muddy  stream  is  again  serene  and  fluid  and  it  spreads  over  broad  lengths  in  its 
lazy  way,  so  that  at  parts  you  may  not  see  its  farthest  shore. 

The  people  of  the  old  Hudson  Bay  Company  thought  the  Yukon  continued  north  and 
emptied  into  the  Arctic  Ocean ;  and  the  earliest  maps  mark  the  river  so  trending.  The 
company's  men  accordingly,  carried  their  goods  overland  from  the  Mackenzie  River  to 
Vancouver,  and  it  required  seven  years  to  accomplish  the  trip.  They  did  not  know  of 
that  remarkable  turn  which  the  Yukon  makes  at  its  confluence  with  the  Porcupine. 
Above  and  below  this  junction  the  river  is  full  of  small  islands,  many  of  them  mere  deposits 
of  alluvium  accumulated  where  driftwood  has  caught  in  the  water,  and  along  the  river 
banks  we  may  see  trees  lying  over,  their  tops  in  the  water  yet  their  roots  still  in  the  soil. 
The  current  cuts  beneath  them  and 
presently  they  are  separated  from  the 
bank  and  carried  down  the  stream 
to  furnish  firewood,  perhaps,  to  the 
inhabitants  of  St.  Michael's  Island, 
over  a  thousand  miles  below.  We 
shall  pass  numerous  Indian  villages 
as  we  proceed,  and  we  shall  discover 
that  the  natives  of  the  Yukon  district 
are  the  lowest  in  their  scale  of  living 
of  all  the  Eskimos.  If  we  go  ashore, 
we  may  stumble  into  some  pit  three 
or  four  feet  deep,  in  which  there  is  a 
revolting   mess    of   carrion    blubber, 

covered   with  a   scum  of  green    slime,  Lake  of  Petroleum  on  North  of  the  Yukon. 


30 


ALASKA,    ITS   WATERS,   LAND   AND  LIFE. 


Summer. on  the  Porcupine. 


and  this  is  a  food  cache  of  a  denizen. 
As  we  near  the  mouth  of  the  river,  we 
come  upon  the  strangest  of  all  the  strange 
wonders  of  Alaska — the  Yukon  Delta. 
It  is  a  vast  moss  marsh  extending  two 
hundred  miles  up  the  river  and  fronting 
the  Bering  Sea  with  a  face  three  hundred 
miles  in  width.  Its  surface  is  covered 
with  green  or  gray  moss  which  grows 
upon  a  pavement  of  ice  a  few  feet  beneath 
the  surface.  This  ice  concrete  stretches 
over  a  large  district  of  the   Yukon   and 

adjacent  rivers.     At  some  places  the  cross  streams  which   cut  it  show  it  to  be  a  hundred 

feet  thick  and  their  waters  are  a  black  ooze  drained  from  the  decaying  roots  of  the  moss. 

On  the  Koowak,  which  empties  into  Kotzebue  Sound — above  that  strange  head  of  land  on 

the  end  of  which  is  Cape  Prince  of  Wales — on  that  stream  the  ice  cliffs  are  one  hundred  and 

fifty  feet  high,  and  in  many  places  they  are  filled  with  the  tusks  and  bones  of  the  extinct 

mammoth.     Gold  in  considerable  quantities  has  been  found  on  the  streams  of  this  river 

and  several  parties  are,  as  L  write,  fitting  out  in  San  Francisco  to  prospect  them  in  spring. 

This  vast  deltoid  plain,  cut   by    the 

many  shallow  stringers  of  the  river's 

mouth,  is  in  the  hot  summer  when 

the  thermometer  is  a  hundred  degrees, 

a  wide   field  of  color.     Innumerable 

yellow  and   purple  flowers   clothe  it 

and   above    them    waft    the   gaudily 

colored  wings  of  the  butterflies.     And 

off"  to  the   north,  bending  on  to  the 

Bering  Sea,  runs  the  only  navigable 

channel  of  the  Yukon.     It  carries  four 

feet  and  a  half  of  water  at  best,  and 

vessels   exceeding   that   draft   cannot 

enter   it.     It    moves  with  its  deltoid 

detritus  on  to  sea,  with  whose  waters  it  mingles  its  mud.     It  has  marvelously  shoaled  this 

sea  so  that  vessels  cannot  approach  the  flat,  and  when  you  are  opposite  this  place,  yet  out  of 

sight  of  land,  you  may  still  have  three  fathoms  of  water. 

And  now  we  are  at  St.   Michaels'  Island  on  which  is  the   town    where  the  Yukon 

steamers  stop  and  vessels  find  a  harbor.     It  is  an  ancient  Russian  kakat  with  a  Greek 

Church  and  United  States  government  buildings,    a  customs'  officer,  and  a  few  soldiers. 

It  is   a   busy   place   in    summer,   though,    during   that   brief   period   when    the   Yukon 

is    open    to    traffic   and    the    whalers    are  coming    down    out   of    the    northern    ocean. 


Breaking  Up  of  the  Ice  on  the  Porcupine  near  its  Confluence  with  the  Yul<on. 


Building  an  Oomealc. 


THE   GREAT  YUKON,   FROM   THE   PORCUPINE  TO  THE   DELTA.  3I 

As  we  floated  down  the  Yukon  we 
passed  numerous  villages  whose  names 
appear  upon  the  maps  in  formidable  length 
and  intricacy.  When  we  neared  them, 
however,  we  found  them  to  be  far  inferior  in 
character  to  what  the  names  might,  to  the 
unknowing,  have  suggested.  We,  who 
were  struck  with  the  Muscovite  guttural 
of  "Andreafsky,"  "Nowikakat,"  "Razboin- 
itskaya"  or  "  Kinegnagmiut,"  and  who 
had  our  fancies  turned  to  behold  spires 
and  burnished  domes  like  we  had  seen  at 
Moscow,  felt  a  sense  akin  to  shock  when 

there  hove  in  sight  upon  the  river's  bank  a  settlement  to  which  such  a  name  belonged. 
It  was  Nowikakat.  No  habitation  could  be  more  primitive  than  this  we  here  beheld. 
A  mere  collection  of  sticks  taken  from  the  river's  driftwood,  were  piled  together  to  serve 
some  rude  form  of  shelter.     Such  houses  are,  however,  the  abodes  of  summer.     In  winter 


Nowikakat— An  Eskimo  Settlement  on  the  Lower  Yukon. 


On  the  Lower  Yukon  near  the  Sea. 

the  chinks  are  stuffed  with  moss,  and  if  the  ground  is  solid  a  burrow  is  made  beneath  the 
surface.  Into  this  all  crawl  ;  the  heat  of  the  bodies  of  the  occupants  and  the  numerous 
tapers  burning  oil  raise  the  temperature  to  an  agreeable  degree,  and  when  bed  time  comes 
the  entire  family  divests  all  clothing  and  retires  together  between  skins,  the  apparel  of  each 

member  being  used  for  the  owner's  pillow. 
In  this  manner,  though  the  cold  without  may 
be  fathoms  below  zero,  yet  the  sleepers 
repose  comfortably,  for  each  contributes 
warmth  to  the  other. 

Transportation  by  land  throughout  this 
country  is  at  present  done  by  dogs.  They 
are  even  used  by  potato  growers  near  the 
Klondike  to  drag  the  plow  ;  but  I  opine  the 
time  is  not  long  when  their  use  will  be 
displaced  by  that  of  the  reindeer.  The  best 
Driftwood  on  the  Banks  of  the  Lower  Yukon.  slcd    dogs    are  the  St.  Bernards,   but  even 


32 


AIvASKA,   ITS  WATERS,  LAND,  AND  UPB. 


St.  Michaels. 


of  these  it  requires  five  to  haul  a 
sled  containing  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  and  though  they  are 
fed  but  once  a  day,  at  evening,  yet 
they  consume  each  three  pounds 
dry  weight  of  rice  and  bacon  and 
this  is  expensive,  and  must  be 
carried  on  the  pack.  The  rein- 
deer draws  more,  drags  faster  and 
will  paw  through  the  snow  for  its 
food,  which  even  if  such  is  carried, 
is  merely  moss  and  inexpensive. 


And  now  my  reader,  such  is  our  journey  over  this  mighty  and  marvelous  region,  and  we 
have  come  to  part.  This  land  which  we  call  Alaska,  is  with  its  islands,  upwards  of  five 
hundred  and  eighty  thousand  square  miles  in  area,  or  as  large  as  all  that  part  of  the  United 
States  lying  east  of  the  Mississippi.  We  have  traversed  much  of  it  on  our  cursory  trip, 
but  much  remains  unseen.  We  could  have  entered  the  interior  by  other  routes  than  that 
selected  ;  by  the  Stickeen  River  from  Fort  Wrangell,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to 
Telegraph  Creek,  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  portage  where  a  railroad  is  now 
building,  and  over  Teslintoo  Lake  into  the  Hootalinqua,  thence  into  the  Lewis  below  White 
Horse  Rapids;  or  we  could  have  come  over  the  Dalton  trail,  across  the  pass  of  the  Chilkats 
arising  from  the  village  of  Klukwau,  or  we  could  have  followed  the  Taku  River  from  its 
outlet,  then  a  trail  of  forty  miles  to  the  Tesleen  Like  and  so  into  the  Lewis ;  but  I  have 
chosen  to  take  you  by  the  route  most  traversed,  over  the  Chilcoot  Pass  where  even  now  so 
many  persons  are  struggling  beneath  their  packs  hopefully  toward  the  land  of  gold. 

And  now  as  the  sun  is  sinking,  let  us  look  again  upon  that  supreme  of  wonders  of  the 
north.  In  winter  only  his  glare  is  daily  for  a  few  hours  seen  upon  the  horizon,  and  when 
he  returns  in  springtime  his  keen  reflection  upon  the  snow  drives  even  the  natives  to 
protect  their  eyes  with  tiny  punctured  goggles  of  wood  ;  and  here  in  the  summer  his  limb 
but  touches  the  horizon  and  he  ascends.  It  is  midnight  and  he  hangs  there  a  great 
bloody  ball,  like  a  frightfully  congested  moon,  as  though  his  white  orb  were  being  cooled 
in  the  polar  ocean.  We  look  upon  him  for  the  last  time  for  the  door  of  our  stateroom 
closes  and  the  engine  bell  jingles  away  for  San  Francisco. 


The  Sun  at  Midnight  off  Point  Barrow,  June  i6,  1897. 


GENERAL  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA— BERKELEY 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or  on  the 

date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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